Watches and Trains

"Remember, Kiara, what do we do if someone comes knocking while I'm not home?"

The roll of my sister's eyes was to be expected by this point, she'd repeated this exchange with me enough times that if she somehow lost her memories, this daily conversation would somehow stick in there.

"Hide in the shelter until the storm passes." Her almost platinum-blonde tresses became messy when I ruffled them like I always did, and as usual, she pushed my hand away before shoving me out the door. The entrance to the secluded "house" we lived in, if you could even call it that, shut loudly behind me, and a sigh of relief exited my lungs.

With that, I started my daily commute to school. Glancing down at the watch I'd snatched off of some pompous-looking businessman the other day, I still had about an hour before school started. If I was going the normal route, I'd get there with twenty or so minutes to spare, but, being me, I decided the scenic route was the better choice.

The slums or whatever you called it, were full of discarded "trash", stuff that only a tinkerer could properly make use of, and when would you ever find a tinkerer in the slums? They lived it large, even the poorest of them making ten times the salary of the richest man in the slums.

I wasn't a certified tinkerer or anything, but I could understand some of the technology left to us down here. It wasn't like I'd ever restored something to perfect or even near-perfect condition. Hell, our TV that I'd barely managed to cobble together switched channels every thirty or so minutes and you'd just have to hope you'd luck out and whatever you were watching would be back by the time things switched again.

Walking through the cluttered streets in the early hours of the morning was a uniquely lonely experience. People down here didn't have early morning jobs. All their work, industrial construction, pubs, and store running didn't start until at least nine am, and it wouldn't be nine for another two hours.

The only good thing about the loneliness was the lack of distraction from my thoughts. When I was home, Kiara needed most of my attention, and the rest of my free time was spent fiddling with electronics I'd found in one place or another to stop myself from thinking of the bleakness of our situation.

Before I realized it, I was halfway to school, standing in front of the station that would take me the rest of the way. It was too late to turn back now if I forgot anything, at least if I wanted to on time, but I checked for all my essentials anyway. A light brown backpack with too many pockets sat low on my back, the straps being loosened almost all the way. My goggles hung from my neck and my gloves stuck slightly out of the pocket of my beige cargo pants. I felt the familiar weight of my tool kit in one of my cargo's closed pockets and the broken gear I had shoved in my pocket this morning while working on the watch I was wearing.

It had been pretty busted when I picked it up, the front glass being cracked, multiple gears on the inside being caked with a strange silver gunk, and one of the even being broken. The man who'd had it before him had been saying some sort of expletives at it before shoving it in his pocket. It had taken parts from another broken watch and a thorough cleaning to get it working, but it was worth it.

In this day and age, it was rare to find a fully functional, or at least fully capable of functioning analog watch. The clocks never seemed to go out of style, but smart watches or simple digital ones had continuously and rapidly replaced the watches. The only analog watches left were the artisan brands and their prices were through the roof.

The broken watch I'd used parts from had been my mom's… but I'd been planning on getting rid of it anyway. It was more of a painful reminder than anything else. At least it got to be useful before I just got rid of it.

Looking up at the station, I sighed and got into the station building right as the sky train pulled in. I scanned "my" transit pass and boarded with the rest of the people going to the same general area that I was. There were quite a few, but very few of them were from the slums like I was.

Chatter started immediately, and the normal crazy people made their noise. I could already tell that it would be a long ride that morning.

Somehow, I found an open seat and sat down, just barely closing my eyes and trying to nod off for the fifteen or so minutes that it would take before the sky train got to my station before my ideal was disrupted by reality.

"Knox?"

Cracking open my left eye, I saw one of my classmates, Rosaline, gazing down at me. Upon seeing my open eye, she smiled and sat down in the seat next to me, which was conveniently free. Someone must've had it out for me if they gave me the perfect spot to take a nap, just to crush the chances of it in a second. Cruel, cruel, fate.

"Is this seat open?" Asking after she already sat down, she knew the answer, by this point, it was just formalities. My reply came after an exasperated sigh.

"Sure." My left eye closed again, leaving me in the dark once more. I was optimistic that Rosaline wouldn't try striking up a conversation or anything, but yet again, my hopes were crushed by reality. Seriously, life was cruel.

"So, Knox, do you normally take this sky train?" The small talk she attempted was painfully awkward, but I felt bad ignoring her so I gave up on trying to sleep and opened both of my eyes, glancing to the side as I answered her.

"Yes." I figured this was the first time she'd taken the sky train to school. Rosaline was different to me in every societal way possible. Her parents were affluent, with her mother being a tinkerer and her father being a developer, if the rumors going around the school were to be trusted. She lived on the upper level and was on the sky train for one reason or another, he wasn't going to pry.

"Oh…" I almost felt bad for shutting down the conversation too fast. Almost. But I wasn't in the mood to have a long conversation at the moment, or probably for a while. She finally seemed to pick up on that and kept quiet the rest of the ride. Even then, I couldn't fall asleep.

Eventually, the train pulled into the upper station, and I got out of the sky train. Rosaline wasn't too far behind, seeing that we were going to the same place and all. The walk from the station to the school wasn't long, and before I realized it, I entered the school gates, Rosaline being pretty much right next to me. However, I didn't notice that until I heard a couple of loud whispers from some of the students in the courtyard.

"Why is Rosaline walking with someone from the Lower Stratum?"

"Beats me, who even is that guy?"

Immediately, I sped up, outpacing Rosaline and making it into the main building before I subjected myself to more gossip about myself.

Glancing down at my watch once more there were only a few minutes until the starting bells rang. Choosing to not be late today, I made my way to class, sitting down in my normal spot and spacing out until I was needed for something.

I first noticed something was wrong when the world became silent. You think you've experienced true silence after putting on noise-canceling headphones, but even those have a sound to them, this was true silence.

My only anchor to processing this soundless world was the sound of the ticking clock on the wall, the only thing unaffected by the silence. Once my senses had returned to normal, I noticed the world was dyed in shades of gray, monotone.

The world was frozen. My classmates and teachers remained stagnant, but I barely had time to process it as the door opened soundlessly, and a man walked in, unperturbed by the situation.

I tried turning my head to look at him as he stood in the doorway, looking for something, but I couldn't. Despite being able to see what was happening, my body was frozen, save for my eyes.

Instead, I turned just my eyes onto him and took in his form. He was a decently tall man with a scruffy beard and dark circles under his eyes like he hadn't gotten proper sleep for weeks. His hair was unkempt, some of it falling into his face in a way you would think obstructed his view, but he seemed to have no problem.

It was no longer than 3 ticks of the clock before the man started moving again. Without a word, he walked to the teacher's desk and started rifling through the drawers.

The man pulled out a spherical object, and after taking a briefcase out from seemingly nowhere, he opened the briefcase. Two more objects were inside, a cube and a some shape I couldn't make out. The inside of the briefcase was structured to exactly fit the objects. There was only one spot left in the middle of the case, sized perfectly for whatever the man had just taken out.

Another tick of the clock and I started to see color again. The color looked like it was leaking from the man's watch, radiating off and increasing in range by the second.

Realizing the state of his watch, the man's tongue's click was the only sound audible in the area. It must've meant something since his movements became more hurried, clearly indicating he didn't want the color leaking too much before he finished whatever he came to do.

After putting the sphere away and closing the briefcase, the man exited the room, unknowing of my eyes following him.

No more than 5 ticks of the clock's second hand after he left and the world returned to normal. The seemingly permanent monotone filter over the world faded and I began to greedily suck up air. I hadn't noticed while I was immobile, but I wasn't breathing, so the return of my greater motor functions had been duly noted.

"Mrs. Hughes, can I go to the bathroom?" My voice came out more strained than I wanted it to. I got a few concerned or confused looks but the majority of the class didn't seem to notice much of anything was wrong.

"Yes, Knox, but hurry back." At the word yes I was already out of my seat, walking as composed as I could manage after what had just happened. I wasn't going crazy, right? The hallway was spinning while I walked through it, I knew why. I had experienced this before, though it was years ago, and I couldn't rationalize just what would cause it in the middle of the day.

Blood loss.